Tag: Thought

What is in Our Control

Posted on by jabittan
In his commonplace book, where he recorded his thoughts, ideas, and lessons about the world, Marcus Aurelius wrote that we can approach the world and choose to interpret the world in ways that will either open new doors for us and improve our perspectives, or we can interpret the world in ways that limit our power to influence and shape our lives.  For Aurelius, being able to control your actions and thoughts about the world was paramount as it determined what your experience during your life would be.  He adopted the philosophy of stoicism and his writings show us how he was able to think about the world in more productive manners.  When it comes to thinking about what we control and have direct choices and influence over in our lives he writes,

 

“Show those qualities then which are altogether in thy power: sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling magnanimity. Dost though not see how many qualities though art immediately able to exhibit, in which there is no excuse of natural incapacity and unfitness, and yet though still remainest voluntarily below the mark?”

 

It is easy to become caught up in the world or the routines of our daily lives and forget how many choices and decision we have the ability to make in a day. What Aurelius is explaining in the quote above is that we will always be sovereign over our own minds, and we can always choose how we wish to behave and react in certain situations. When we fail to think about how we are interpreting the world, how we are reacting to what others say, and the ways in which we think about our position in the world, then we are forfeiting control of a major part of our selves. We give up the power to shape the direction of our lives.  What Aurelius advocates for is greater acceptance of the power of our minds, and the useful practice of empowering ourselves over the influences that are easy to allow to control our minds.

Good Fortune

Posted on by jabittan
In stoic philosophy being able to control your emotions is a central focus since it allows you to make better decisions, interact in a more sociable manner with all people, and to see the world from better perspectives through a process of reflection and controlled decision making.  Thinking about our thinking and thought process is how we begin to develop control over our emotions, and it allows us to shift our reactions and feelings to better handle situations.  Throughout the collection of his writing in the book, Meditations, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius provides us with examples of situations where greater awareness, reflection, and emotional temperance can help us become better people. When facing adversity Aurelius writes, “Remember too, an every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle; not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.” In writing this he shows how a shift in thinking and focus can help us move from feeling anxious or dejected to hopeful and proud. Learning to control our emotions and shift the way we feel can help us move forward and advance in situations where we would rather shrink and shy away.

Aurelius’ quote is very inspirational to me because it shows that we can choose how a negative situation will affect us.  We can take a bad situation and always change our perspective to see ways in which we can move forward and take away something positive.  I don’t think that Aurelius would encourage us to jump straight to this mindset in any tragedy, we are human and will still feel those emotions, but over time we can move from negative spaces following any tragedy and build better emotional feelings and thoughts.

I find that Marcus Aurelius’ quote above is the most impactful and useful when applied to the small negatives and social situations that we face every day. It is easy to allow small frustrations to build and become major stressors in your life. We all face challenges and annoyances every day which make us bristle despite their petty nature or their small impact on our lives.  What we can learn from stoicism is that we have a choice in how we react to these daily annoyances, and we can childishly complain, or we can pause and decide to nobly bear the situation knowing that it does not truly impact our life.  Shifting our focus in this way can allow us to be more magnanimous toward people around us, it can improve our health as we drop our blood pressure and avoid fits of rage, and it can also give us the opportunity to present the world with the best version of who we are.

Transformation and Opinion

Posted on by jabittan
In many sections of his writing in, Meditations, Marcus Aurelius comments on how we react to things around us, and how we can recognize that the outside world does not truly affect who we are, but that our reactions and thoughts are what shape us as human beings.  Aurelius writes,

 

“But among the things readiest to thy hand to which thou shalt turn, let there be these, which are two.  One is that things do not touch the soul, for they are external and remain immovable; but our perturbations come only from the opinion which is within.  The other is that all these things, which thou seest, change immediately and will no longer be; and constantly bear in mind how many of these changes though hast already witnessed.  The universe is transformation; life is opinion.”

 

In this quote Aurelius is explaining the stoic idea that we can chose how to react to the world and events around us, and that we can control our emotions to better behave and think throughout our days and lifetime.  There are few things which truly change the brain and shape the way in which the brain functions, and for the most part, how we experience life will be determined by the decisions we make, and how we allow our choices and experiences define us.  We can label things as good or bad, but nothing truly is good or evil unless we decide in our mind that it is.

 

Aurelius is also speaking about the brevity of so many of our experiences in life.  It can often be hard to imagine being someplace else, or having different experiences, but whatever our current state is, we likely will live in a massively different state in the future. There are things such as chronic disease or the loss of family which will be permanent and unchangeable, but the way that those things affect us can be temporary and bearable.  Aurelius is reminding us that good or bad, we can change our lives and how we experience life through our thoughts and opinions. When we chose to bring a better perspective to our lives we can shape the lens through which we perceive our experiences, and we can chose whether things have positive or negative outcomes for ourselves.  Recognizing that things don’t shape us as much as our own mind shapes us shows the importance of mental fortitude, and remembering how quickly life transforms helps us build the grit needed to maintain our thoughts and positivity.

The Faculties of the Mind

Posted on by jabittan
In his collection of thoughts, Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes about how we should think about our thinking. His book was written as tool for him to return to when he felt as though he was not living to his full potential. Changing the way we think and being aware of the thoughts that we have can help guide us in our life and decisions.  Aurelius encourages us to build awareness of our thoughts, and to create robust mental habits.  He writes, “Reverence the faculty which produces opinion, on this faculty it entirely depends where there shall exist in thy ruling part any opinion inconsistent with nature and the constitution of the rational animal.” What this quote shows is the way that Aurelius thought about our mental state and the ways in which we can strengthen our mind.

Aurelius is focused on how we act and govern ourselves, and the choices that we make throughout the day. He understands that we will always be challenged and that making the best decisions will not always be clear, but his quote shows that we can focus on our thoughts to improve our decision making process. When we become determined to be guided by reason and not passion or desire, we can become more rational in our actions, and we can focus better on the things which we can do to build real value in our lives, in the lives of those we care about, and in our communities.  Finding a way to be mentally strong will help us shape our lives to be fuller and more meaningful.

To do this we must begin to think about our thinking in new ways. We have to understand that our faculties of mind can shape the way we interpret the world, and we can see that our mind can give us the power to change not just who we are, but who we want and expect to become.  When we look at our life and understand that our mind can become isolated from factors around us, we put power and control of our life back on our shoulders. This means that we can be guided by reason above all else, and that reason and logic can be the forces which shape our decisions and reactions.  Aurelius would argue that this is critical to life otherwise one will be tossed about by impulsivity and desire.  Looking at our faculties of mind in this way can help us understand how the world affects us, and how our decisions shape the lives we live.

Continually Closer to Death

Posted on by jabittan
In Meditations a reoccurring theme is  the acceptance and awareness of death and the end of our time on Earth.  While writing down his thoughts and collecting his ideas, Aurelius returned over and over to death and our recognition of death.  He did not have a morbid view of our passing, and he did not have a negative view of our death, but he approaches it with humility and realism.  The emperor writes, “We ought to consider not only that our life is daily wasting away and a smaller part of it is left, but another thing also must be taken into the account, that if a man should live longer it is quite uncertain whether the understanding will still continue sufficient for the comprehension of things … We must make haste then, not only because we are daily nearer to death, but also because the conception of things and the understanding of them cease first.”

 

In the emperors view of death we find an understanding that we don’t only expire in a physical form, but in a mental form as well. He is well accepting of the aging process and recognizes that our physical form will break down along the path to death, and that before we do reach our end, our mental faculties will also experience a state of decline.  Aurelius, throughout his book, never seems to be worried or concerned with death and generally approaches it as a welcome experience at the end of our lives. Since everyone faces death he sees it more as an equalizing force in humanity, and as it affects everyone he sees no point in trying to hide from it or fear it. This mindset transforms Aurelius’ views on death from pessimistic to optimistic.  He is excited about the time he has on earth and is compelled to take advantage of the time he has.

 

I think you could compare the way that Aurelius views death and our time on this planet to the way that many view school in the United States.  Whether you look at high school or college, for many people in our country school life is a limited time period with a beginning and an end.  Continuing on in  this metaphor I will focus more on college because it can be easier to comprehend the end of college and of the lives we lived throughout college. From my experience in college everyone approaches their time at school with a different lens. Some are excited about every day, some dread each day, some simply want to reach the end, many fear what the end of college will bring, and many students fill the gaps between or occupy multiple states at once.  You can see the end of college as a reward and as the end of your life(style) all at the same time, which creates a wide range of approaches to college for students.  In my metaphor Aurelius would be a student who recognizes that his time in school will end, and works to fulfill his time at his university before he runs to the eventual end.  He accepts that it cannot last forever, and he strives to find ways in which he can constantly improve and gain knowledge that will make each day richer.

 

This is truly the approach Marcus Aurelius brought to his life and implemented over the long run.  He saw death and his eventual end as a welcome part of life, even if he did not want to face it.  His message about remembering death is not morbid or fear inducing, but rather a message encouraging us to focus on the present and take advantage of the time that we have.

The Reflections of a Stoic

Posted on by jabittan
Meditations is a work by Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD. It is a collection of letters written by Aurelius in his common place book, a journal where he wrote his important thoughts and reflections so that he could return to them and always be cognizant of the lessons life had provided him.

 

Aurelius’ Meditations begins with the emperor reflecting on his childhood, his family, and his upbringing.  He lists lessons that he learned from those around him during his development, and what those lessons meant to him at the time he was writing.  As I return to Aurelius’ thoughts, I am struck by how well his work parallels ideas from Fred Kiel’s book Return on Character. I recently wrote about a study that Kiel completed as part of the research for his business book written over 1,800 years after Aurelius’ meditations, and I am struck by the overlap of the ideas.  Kiel argues that our most successful and responsible business leaders, those who provide the greatest value for those in their lives and the companies they run, are those who have a whole and complete understanding of themselves and the experiences that shaped their lives.  He argues that to be a truly moral and responsible individual you must be able to reflect on the influences that shaped your life, and understand how those influences shaped who you are today.  By understanding and having a complete life story you can better connect with people and be better prepared to lead through having a greater understanding of humanity and your place within society.

 

What Kiel wrote in his book in 2015, Aurelius clearly understood in the 2nd second century.  He explains how he developed the thoughts and ideas that shaped him, and he explains exactly where his character traits and habits come from.

 

The Emperor begins Meditations by writing, “From my grandfather Verus [I learned] good morals and the government of my temper” and he continues, “From my mother, piety and beneficence, and abstinence, not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and further simplicity in my way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich.” Aurelius extends beyond family to show what lessons he learned from people in the society in which he lived, “From my governor…I learned endurance of labor, and to want little, and to work with my own hands…” “From Rusticus I received the impression that my character required improvement and discipline … nor to showing myself off as a man who practices much discipline, or does benevolent acts in order to make a display.”

 

The quotes above are key tenants of stoicism, and they struck me as very powerful when I first read Meditations. Aurelius explains what forces in his life shaped his thoughts and beliefs, and he continues  throughout his work to show how this backing helped him approach the world in a constructive and positive manner as he governed not only the Roman Empire, but his own mind and actions. Incorporating the ideas outlined above in his quotes can be very powerful in the way we approach others and apply ourselves toward the efforts and goals that we all have.  Remembering that character requires discipline and continual improvement helps us stay humbled in our relationships to others, especially if we can practice such discipline without making a great show or display of it.  When we can focus on these key concepts and understand what molded us into the complete individuals that we are today, we will be better prepared to react to a changing world, and we will better understand our role and place within our society.

The Fast Brain’s Habits

Posted on by jabittan
Return on Character by Fred Kiel is a business book that argues that individuals with high moral character become better leaders in the business world and create more value for the companies they lead.  Kiel spends time in his book explaining how leaders with strong moral characters improve the workplace, and he also discusses ideas about where those moral character habits come from. He addresses the idea of the fast brain where our subconscious makes decisions and drives our emotions and behavior, and our slow brain where we rationally think through our ideas and actions. Focusing on the fast brain and its role in our behaviors, habits, and character Kiel writes,

“The fast brain is where all of our subconscious intuitions, cravings, habits, and emotions reside.  The fast brain’s primary purpose is to prove the subconscious “spurs” to drive behavior patterns aimed at bringing us safety, security, food, and social connection. … Our Fast brain also spurs behavior through habits — automatic responses such as putting our foot on the brake when we see a stop sign.  Those habits that determine how we relate to others, such as a reflexive response to tell the truth or own up to our mistakes, become our character habits.”

What Kiel’s quote shows me is that we will not be able to control, guide, or shape our character if we are not able to recognize the habits that are formed within our fast brain.  Increasing our level of self-awareness, focusing on our reactions to others, and being cognizant of our interactions with those around us will allow us to begin to form our fast brain into a tool that guides us along a moral path. We can use practices of self-awareness and perspective  to turn our fast brain into a machine that builds our character over time.  By focusing on our relationships with others and becoming comfortable with adopting strong character habits we can reach a level where we treat everyone around us better.

I think that an important component within the idea of shaping our fast brain is accepting the reactions and habits we have formed without realizing it. Often these habits can be quite negative, such as looking the other way when a person from a different ethnic background walks by, and it is important that we accept those habits rather than sweep them under a rug and hide them from ourselves. If we cannot accept that we have negative habits formed by our fast brain, then we never give our slow brain a chance to think through them and tumble through a solution to become a better person.  During the process of shaping our fast brain we must recognize the behaviors we want to change, but we must do so by accepting that we have those habits and behaviors before we tell ourselves how wrong they are, and before we castigate ourselves for having such thoughts and behaviors. An honest inner dialogue of reflection will help us grow, and give us a chance to help others grow by accepting our flaws, as well as the flaws of others, and finding a way to grow in a positive direction as a group.

Respecting the Well-Being of Others

Posted on by jabittan
Peter Singer focuses on the ideas regarding our interactions with others throughout his book The Most Good You Can Do, and he continually returns to the idea of how we value our life relative to the lives of our family members and the lives of those beyond our family.  Singer argues that the effective altruist movement would not be able to spread if people did not have the ability to empathize with others, and if people could not find ways in which they recognized that all human life holds the same value.

 

Singer references Richard Keshen, a Canadian philosopher, to explain the ways that effective altruists may view other people in the world. “At the core of the reasonable person’s ethical life, according to Keshen, is a recognition that others are like us and therefore, in some sense, their lives and  their well-being matter as much as our own.” Prior to this quote Signer quotes Keshen to explain that a reasonable person is someone who makes decisions and develops beliefs that are backed by evidence which can be defended. Their evidence may still be criticized and challenged by others, but the evidence can be used in a rational way to reach a real conclusion.  The base mindset of a reasonable person is that their thinking is unbiased, and the unbiased nature of their thought means that it is not influenced by personal factors and takes a more objective view of the world.

 

As I write this I am absolutely able to understand the importance of viewing the lives of others as equal in value to our own, but I am conflicted with Keshen’s views of reason and do not feel as though they completely add toward the point he is making.  I question whether or not we are able to take a truly objective view of the world regardless of the reason behind our thinking and regardless of how well we try to live without biases.  While I agree that living with the principal that the lives of all members of society are equal in value, I feel as though there are personal biases that have pushed me in this direction. I have been guided by more than just  rational thought, and I know that I am affected by my biases even if I don’t notice them.
I also wonder if the same argument presented by Keshen in support of effective altruism can be used to demonstrate the differences between the lives of those in society and ultimately used to show the importance of keeping wealth and resources within a close family unit.  I do not argue with Singer’s main point, but I am conflicted with Keshen’s view of a rational person, and I am not sure that his definition helps us truly understand the thought process and identity of an effective altruist.